So, let's get this straight. Let's say you want to control the war on terror/cover up your failed experiments/whatever evil thing you can come up with. You'd rather do it out in the open, where authorities and officials are going to be out to get you, rather than using a facade and having people subvert their thoughts of you doing it? Ok then. I don't see how you don't understand this, it's not a hard concept to grasp.

You misunderstood me completely, not that I'm surprised because some people need some time to recognize irony. Yes, Killian was the evil Big Kahuna, he was the terrorist, but he never planned to call himself the Mandarin. In his plans, the Mandarin was the name for the phantom terrorist that the government would chase and never find. Yes, he had an army of Extremis soldiers at his disposal, but they called him Killian, Aldrich, Mister Killian, boss, or whatever else, but they never called him the Mandarin. Killian's "Mandarin persona" was just a fictional character even for Killian, because he had no idea that the Mandarin was very real. The translation of his entire "I-am-the-Mandarin" talk is very simple, and it goes like this: "You said you wanted the terrorist responsible for all the s.h.i.t that happened this week... you're looking right at him. It was always me Tony, right from the start. I am that terrorist!"